As military spouses we are keenly skilled in the art of the juggle. We just do what needs to be done and some how everything falls into place. That doesn’t mean we don’t occasionally drop a ball or two or have a few extra tossed in, but we adjust. We do what they say in the military – we adapt and overcome. In my 13 years as a military spouse, I have juggled my fair share but had been lucky to have the balls falling ever so carefully into place. That is where I went wrong, I got comfortable. I cast aside the constant underlying fear of deployment, the worry that orders would up root our finally settled family in a moment’s notice; I had let my guard down.
It was in those moments, that seemed to move slowly that I took a breath and had to give myself the pep talk I had given to spouses a million times before. “Now is the time to reach out o that community you’ve built.” I’ve often prophesied (that’s what my husband calls it) the need to develop and find strength in your military spouse community, and I finally needed to really let them be there for me. Sure, with everything you will have to weed out the real and the fake support, but it’s usually in these situations that we learn to juggle those people ever so carefully so that should they be there, and I mean really be there, that you have an open enough heart to say yes I need you.
Military life is the hardest when we go it alone. I can tell you, for weeks I bore the weight of my bad news, that darn D word, and my good news not sure I could say it. Saying something gives it life, it gains power. I did not want to give this deployment any power over me, especially the power to take away my joys. With the upheaval in our government, looming shutdowns, and funding issues due to sequestration I fear that deployment will be extended. I cannot dwell on that, much like I tell my children, we will count everyday that passes as a win, we can’t try to figure out the end when we aren’t sure.
